Seamless Transfer Pathways

How might community colleges and four-year universities dramatically improve transfer and graduation rates by reframing the end-to-end experience from the student’s point-of-view?

Research shows that 80 percent of students who enroll in one of our nation’s community colleges every year express an intent to complete a bachelor’s degree at a four-year institution. Yet, in the end, only 25 percent make the leap to a four-year school within five years, and only 17 percent complete a four-year degree within 6 years of transferring. This is a national failure. In an economy where the lifetime earnings premium for four-year degree holders is still over $1 million compared to a high school graduate ($500,000 more than an associate degree) and nearly three quarters of new jobs created since 2008 have gone to bachelor’s degree holders, the need to support more students in their attainment goal is more critical than ever.

Overview

The Michael & Susan Dell Foundation has funded the Education Design Lab to lead an intensive one-year Design Challenge beginning Fall, 2017. Four pairs of two- and four-year institutions will develop customized sets of tested interventions that can dramatically move the needle on bachelor’s completion for community college students.

Teams from each institution will participate in three national cohort convenings and another three custom on-site design sessions. They will be provided access to subject matter experts, coaches and design specialists to help redesign the students’ journey from the student’s point of view via a structured process for developing transformative, not incremental, solutions. Pilots will launch in Fall, 2018, and results tracked for the next six years.

Throughout the Design Challenge, participants will:

1. Learn the core fundamentals of design-driven innovation and understand how it can bring diverse stakeholders together to co-create on behalf of student success. It can also help to mitigate the age-old problem: “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”

2. Meet other administrators and experts from around the country focused on transfer pathways in a hands-on, structured creative process to explore how emerging best practices can meet the needs of their students.

3. Design and iterate prototypes toward one or more pilot plans. Training on rapid prototyping and lean startup methods will help partners arrive at an implementation and launch and evaluation plan, with funded support from a third party evaluator.

Design Challenge Lead

Michelle is a Design Challenge Lead for the Lab’s Badging Challenge. Michelle is also the President of Lead by Experience, offering strategic and tactical consulting to help leadership teams across: business, health care and education improve their customer experience.

Through her coaching, Michelle loves to “gently” break up typical functional silos to stimulate collaboration and steer change management across organizations. She integrates new, cost effective, ways to capture and understand customers’ expectations, wants and needs.

Prior to establishing her own business, Michelle held executive positions in telecommunications at MCI and NII Holdings where she held the position of Senior Director of Customer Experience. Michelle earned a Masters of Arts degree in Education: Curriculum & Instruction from Loyola College in Maryland and completed an Executive Certification in Global Leadership from Georgetown University – the McDonough School of Business.

Michael Meotti

Higher Ed Fellow

Mike brings extensive experience in higher education policy, innovation and management to Education Design Lab’s work. Mike has a broad perspective on the challenges facing colleges and universities based on his past leadership positions in state government, nonprofit organizations and higher education systems. He has led transformation initiatives in all of these sectors.

Mike served as Commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Higher Education and Executive Vice President and chief operating officer of the Connecticut Board of Regents for Higher Education.

Mike was a member of the Executive Committee and Vice Chair of the Federal Relations Committee of the State Higher Education Executive Officers (SHEEO). He led the Connecticut delegation in the National Governors Association Best Practices Academy “Complete to Compete” and in Complete College America. Michael was also active in the state policy track of Achieving the Dream and the Smarter Balanced Assessment Coalition for the Common Core Standards. He earned his J.D. and B.S. degrees from Georgetown University.

Prior to his work in higher education, Mike led several nonprofit organizations that provided services addressing the needs of many “first generation” and returning adult students.